Enhanced KIVARS Malware Now Attacks 64-bit Systems

More and more pieces of malware have become capable of targeting users running 64-bit versions of operating systems.

One of them is KIVARS, a piece of malware whose 64-bit version was recently analyzed by researchers from Trend Micro. According to the security firm, the Trojan is distributed with the aid of TROJ_FAKEWORD.A, a dropper that's designed to drop two executable files and a Microsoft Word document on infected systems.

In the 32-bit version, the executable files are copied into the "windows system" folder with the names iprips.dll, which is detected by Trend Micro as TROJ_KIVARSLDR, and winbs2.dll, detected as BKDR_KIVARS. The latest versions of KIVARS, which can target both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, drop these components in the same folder, but under a random name, with the backdoor file having either a .tib or a .dat extension.

The dropper uses the right-to-left override (RLO) technique and a genuine Microsoft Word icon to make it look like the document file, which is password protected and acts as a decoy, is genuine, Trend said. These techniques have also been used in a campaign targeted at government agencies in Taiwan, which Trend Micro recently analyzed